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Cover: The Littlest Christmas TreeHere’s the cover preview for my Christmas novella, The Littlest Christmas Tree. It’s 21,000 words, it will be available in digital only, and I’ll be putting it up for FREE early next week for the holiday season. Blurb is below. It’s the second book in the Second Chance series. I’m keeping this as a running series for a while, too.

In this bonus novella from the “Second Chance” series titled, The Littlest Christmas Tree, an unhappy man trapped in a relationship so bad he isn’t even allowed a small Christmas tree is granted a second chance to go back in time and rethink the most pivotal choice he ever made. In doing this, he becomes one of the lucky few who can alter the outcome of his entire life.

But there’s a catch. Although he’s offered the chance to return to his college days and make a different choice, when he actually does go back he’s not consciously aware of this and there are no guarantees he won’t make the same bad choice twice. Will he choose a stable life with a handsome, aggressive young law student? Or will he choose the scruffy young theater student who drives a motorcycle and works in an auto body shop?

James Franco BDSM Gay Film

James Franco and Travis Mathews have a short feature out called, Interior. Leather Bar. But I’d like to set this up first. In 1980 there was a film titled, Cruising, with Al Pacino portraying a NY cop doing what I think was under cover work in gay leather bars. I have seen the film and read the book, which had the same title. I read the book around the same time I read Dancer from the Dance and The Front Runner. At the time, there weren’t that many reading choices for gay men. And these three books stand out more than any others for me. What’s interesting about what Franco did is that he tried to recapture (not recreate) scenes that had been cut from the original version of Cruising (so that they could avoid an X rating at the time) and he re-imagined those scenes in his short feature, Interior. Leather Bar.Their new short feature, Interior. Leather Bar doesn’t recreate Cruising but is a mix between their take on that lost footage and a documentary-style, partly scripted, partly real, behind-the-scenes look at how they made it. Here Mathews shares the joys of difficulties of getting actors to have ‘real’ gay sex on screen and his reasons for taking on a subject many would rather he left alone.

Make no mistake, this isn’t M/M romance or anything M/M related. This brand of gay fiction brings me back to my roots as a gay author and it’s about as real as things got back then. When Cruising was written (and filmed) times were very different and gay culture was an underground sub-culture, in raw form. The only way to meet other gay men, and to interact with other gay men on any social level, was to go to bars and clubs that featured everything from country-western to BDSM. Or, in state parks and public rest areas. Or course there were ads in the Village Voice, but you had to be very brave to answer them.

Here’s the basic plot from the book, Cruising. The novel is about an undercover cop looking for a homosexual killer in the world of sadomasochism leather gay bars in Greenwich Village, New York. While undercover, he begins to gain feelings for his gay neighbor at the same time he is in a relationship. He ends up cheating on his girlfriend.This isn’t Fifty Shades of Grey BDSM either. This is the real thing, not “Mommy Porn.” I highly recommend reading this book, as well as Dancer from the Dance.

We used to have a fantastic indie video store in New Hope that always had plenty of gay indie films that closed about four years ago, so when I spotted the gay film, “I Do,” with David W. Ross on Verizon on demand last night I rented it without even looking at the previews.

And I wasn’t disappointed this time. The basic plot revolves around a nice looking British guy, David W. Ross, who has been living and working in New York since he was seventeen years old. The only family he has left are his brother and sister-in-law. I’ll stop there, because I don’t want to give out any spoilers. But as the film progresses the British guy finds himself fighting the INS in order to remain in the US. He ultimately decides to marry his best lesbian friend in order to get a green card. Then when he least expects it, he falls in love with a guy he meets at a party…who happens to be a legal US citizen but is also from Spain.

The plot is actually much more complicated than what I’m stating now, and as I said I don’t want to give out any spoilers. But the issue of gay marriage comes into play because the gay British guy falls in love with a guy he wants to marry, who happens to be a legal US citizen and a legal citizen of Spain, but he can’t marry him because gay marriage is not legal in the US.

They mention gay marriage being legal in New York, and I think they did this on purpose. The fact that gay marriage is legal in the state of New York is absolutely worthless in this case, just as it is worthless in many other aspects in all states where gay marriage is legal. It’s great on an emotional level, but when it comes down to the pragmatic issues in life we all face eventually it leaves gay couples with very little protection. Because the US government will not recognize a same sex marriage, the character in the film is unable to get a green card if he married a man he loved anywhere in the US. The key word here is federal.

This is just one reason why I say I’m happy but I’m not jumping up and down whenever gay marriage is passed on a state level. Until same sex marriage is legal on a federal level gay men like the guys in the film, “I Do,” are still going to face the challenges of inequality on life changing levels. I actually know a couple in Florida where something exactly like this happened to them. They now reside in Germany.

In this film, even though I won’t say what happens, the British guy is left with two options. He can remain in the US and marry a woman and pretend to love her so he can get his green card. Or he can leave the country, go to Spain with the man he loves, and live there where gay marriage is supposedly legal.

It’s an interesting film to view, especially right now with SCOTUS ready to hand down rulings this week on same sex marriage. I have no idea what to predict at this point.

As a side note, David W. Ross is excellent in the film…he starred in it and he wrote it. And, this is a film about gay men, written by a gay man, starring a gay man for those who are interested in the details. I’ll watch it again many times.

David W. Ross is an English musician and actor. After moving to London at the age of 17 and seeking work as a film extra, his photo was spotted by Ian Levine, a boy band producer, and Ross was signed to A&M Records U.K., as one of the four members of Bad Boys Inc. The group released one self-titled album, which spawned five hit singles, including the Top 10 smash “More to This World”.

Ryan Field is the author of over 100 published works of LGBT fiction, the best selling Virgin Billionaire series, a pg rated hetero romance that was featured on The Home Shopping Network titled, "Loving Daylight," and a few more works of full length fiction with a pen name. He's worked in publishing for twenty years as a writer, editor, and associate editor. His work has been in Lambda Award winning anthologies and he's self-published a few novels with Ryan Field Press. You can reach him by leaving a comment here, or at rfieldj@aol.com